


The Fairy Godmother

by Karolina98



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Child Acquisition, Bardic arts, Bisexual Disasters, Each and everyone of them, Idiots, Magic, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22907257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karolina98/pseuds/Karolina98
Summary: "I, er... have a fairy godmother." Jaskier says. He knows it sounds childishly ridiculous, but needs must."Really?" Ciri ask and there is something excited and hopeful in her tone of voice."No." Yennefer grits through her teeth. "That is absolutely ridiculous. Don't -"  But she doesn't get to finish that sentence. She's obviously in a lot of pain.Geralt doesn't comment, as he's dying. Actually dying. Very nearly dead really."Well, I do." Jaskier stubbornly says. He's like 99 percent sure he does. "And she'll be able to help." He's about 45 percent sure of that. But it's all he has to offer in their current situation of being completely fucked.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 53
Kudos: 554





	1. Not getting executed.

**Author's Note:**

> Jaskier learns he has a fairy godmother. Sort of.

"I, er... have a fairy godmother." Jaskier says. He knows it sounds childishly ridiculous, but needs must. 

"Really?" Ciri ask and there is something excited and hopeful in her tone of voice. 

"No." Yennefer grits through her teeth. "That is absolutely ridiculous. Don't -" But she doesn't get to finish that sentence. She's obviously in a lot of pain.

Geralt doesn't comment, as he's dying. Actually dying. Very nearly dead really. 

"Well, I do." Jaskier stubbornly says. He's like 99 percent sure he does. "And she'll be able to help." He's about 45 percent sure of that. But it's all he has to offer in their current situation of being completely fucked. 

*

In his, admittedly not very pleasant, childhood, Jaskier’s grandmother had told him about his fairy godmother. It had been after he’d been teased and pushed by his cousins and playmates. He’d been scuffed and dirty, tear tracks down his face with bloody knees. He'd been hiding in her wardrobe and his grandmother had happened upon him. His grandmother was a tall and proud woman who disapproved of many things, not in the least Jaskier himself.

She’d seen him, shaken her head and taken him none to gently by the arm. She's called the servants for a bath and had scrubbed him roughly clean, stinging cuts and scrapes and all. Even at the tender age of six, Jaskier knew his grandmother wasn't a very nice woman, and he knew she didn’t like him. He hadn’t been able to stop sniffling through the whole ordeal and she had only sighed. Just before he was hauled from the tepid water and rubbed roughly dry with a coarse towel, he’d cried;“Nobody likes me!” His grandmother had speared him with a glare, and he knew she was unimpressed with this fact. She continued her rough treatment of him, exasperated. It wasn’t until he was sitting in from of the fire with a cup of warm milk, in an uncomfortable silence, that she suddenly seemed to sag into herself.

“Julian. It’s much more important to like yourself. The only way to truly live, is to exists as yourself in this world. And you need to exist in a way that you truly like who you are.” These were many words that a six year old Jaskier couldn’t appreciate at all. Many years later he would, and they would plague him very much about a woman he had only really known as hard and cold. But then, in the drafty little room his grandmother kept, they brought him no comfort. He felt very much like crying again when his grandmother seemingly changed the topic.

“Our line. Our blood.. We have a guardian.” She’s started. Jaskier perked up, tears forgotten, he recognised the start of a story when he heard one, and regardless of chilly room, the aches and sniffles, he was happy to hear one. His grandmother never told stories, and he was excited about learning a new one. And any story, even one told by slow and stuttering Ulf for instance, was good.

“Like a fairy godmother?” He prompted her when grandmother seemed to forget he was in the room. She blinked at him.

“Yes, I suppose so.” She agreed and trailed off, staring right through Jaskier. “She likes schnapps and berry tarts and pierogis.” His grandmother paused. “And stories.” There was a pause again. Jaskier thought the fairy godmother had good taste, pierogis and berry tarts were his favourite and stories were the best thing ever. He was sure he’d like schnapps when he was older too.

“And when you’re in need, you can make her meal and call out with a story and she’ll appear to help.”

Grandmother stared out the little window and Jaskier awkwardly wondered if that was it, there would be no story. But then grandmother, stuttering the story at the beginning for a bit, wove a tale of love and adventure. With forbidden romance and bears and heroic deeds. The fairy godmother appeared thrice in person, once to help the couple escape, once to tame a dragon and once to cure a deadly illness, and was attributed a lot of good fortune throughout.

The story was unlike any Jaskier had ever heard in his young life. He didn’t understand all bits, but grandmother had been able to spin a tale so real that he could smell the bear’s breath, felt the zing of narrowly missing arrows, tasted sweet meads and roasted boar. It was like he was living the story himself. It was the most beautiful experience, and it made him more sure than ever. When he was grown, he would leave this awful castle, with his awful family and tell stories. And sing songs. And make people happy. And then they would like him.

His grandmother faltered in the end. The spell was broken harshly and it left Jaskier a little breathless. His Grandmother looked thunderous. Angry and mean. He just about gathered the courage to ask her how it ended. She looked at him like he was some gross worm and all the warmth and excitement rushed out of Jaskier.

“They lived happily ever after.” Grandmother said in cold, flat voice. To the end of his days, that phrase was a contender for ‘biggest lie’ Jaskier had ever heard.

Regardless of the terrible ending, the story and the fairy godmother stuck. For weeks and weeks he set a table and recited stories and songs and jokes, but the fair godmother didn’t come. At first he thought it was because his tellings were not good enough yet, but then mother let the cook give him a good thrashing for stealing berry tarts and he was crying on his bed, and he figured the fairy godmother just didn’t like him. Just like everyone else.

*

It wasn’t until he was sixteen and he was on holiday from school in some bucolic little town that he thought of the fairy godmother again. He’s elected not to go home and was spending the MayDay celebrations practising the bardic arts. He was, if he did say so himself, not doing too shabbily. He was mostly performing old favourites, but he got a decent response to his originals.

On the actual May Day Feast he had coin enough for an elaborate meal, drink (he did like schnapps), trinkets and an all around good time. The night got better when the miller’s wife seduced him and taught him some tricks that would serve him a lifetime. He was young and she was enthusiastic, and they explored many, many ways to celebrate the May day. It’s close to dawn when they are discover ‘en flagrante’ and it turns out the miller has a lot of friends.

They throw him in the town gaol after a savage beating. His whole body aches, but worse, his head is spinning and his vision is blurry and he’s blacking out here and there. It’s not until the guard mentions it he remembers being accused of witchcraft. It’s a ridiculous claim, he’s certainly no witch. He may be a rabbit, he thinks muzzily. The gaol is half under ground and the little window/air vent has grass and weeds growing in from of it. They stomped on his head pretty hard, because he sinks back into fevered dreams and hallucinations of being interchangeably, a witch, a mole, buried alive and the flowers that push themselves up out of the soil.

It doesn't get much better. Somehow a trial happens and the miller’s wife puts up a show. The crowd riles up and accuses him of weaving spells in his songs, nevermind they are classic folksongs that have been sung for ages, and tempting people with his words. Jaskier has a hard time strining words together and he thinks he vomits on the alderman instead of pleading a passionate defence. Before he knows it, he’s set for execution.

The last night being buried alive in the goal he thinks of the fairy godmother, and he rages at the unfairness of it all. Here he is, almost seventeen, and about to be executed for a shag. A shag, gods be damned! And no one likes him enough to come for him. He doubts anyone will miss him. Maybe the school will miss the tuition. He’s too nausea to finish his last meal, it’s a horrible one anyway of scummy water, stale bread crusts and wrinkly apple bruised on one side, but he's unreasonably annoyed about that too. Not even a pierogi to send him off the mortal coil. He sings the most tragic and dramatic ballad he can think of to comfort himself. It’s rather haunting if he does say so himself and not even the guards come to tell him to shut up. Or maybe it's just in his head, because he's been having a hard time moving his face and stringing words together. 

When he wakes up it almost the dawn of his last day, and he’s not alone in his cell anymore. He blinks stupidly at a young woman sitting against the wall tentatively chewing a mouthful of apple with her nose wrinkled in distaste. She looks up at him.

“Huh?” Jaskier asks.

“Oh, hello, good morning. Who are you?” She asks and, excuse him, shouldn’t he be asking that? _Fairy godmother_ something in his aching brain supplies. Which is the most pathetic, childish thing to think. She’s wearing funny clothes though, he thinks, but not really something he would think of a 'fairy'. And she has an accent he can’t place at all. He tries to focus on her for what may be several days before he thinks to answer her.

“Jaskier.” He says. That’s not right, but then again, he has apparently lost his mind, so that hardly matters. She smiles at him and puts the apple down.

“Awful spread.” She comments. Then; “Doesn’t Jaskier mean dandelion?” She asks and Jaskier can’t make his tongue form an answer. “Good name, I suppose.” She sounds approving. “It’s hard to eradicate a weed.” And then chuckles as if that’s funny. She nods to him and scoots over, the cell not high enough to comfortable stand up in.

“You poor kid.” She tuts, gently lifting his chin with warm fingers so she can look into his eyes. He’s not a goat, he thinks, he’s a weed. The errant thought flits away and he can do nothing but look back into her gaze. She has large, dark eyes and the depth of them make his vision blurr even more and his stomach recoils. 

“Yep, this is going to hurt.” She tells him and pats his knee and suddenly a pain like he’s never experienced before envelops his head. It’s crushing and smothering and indescribable. He throws up, narrowly missing the strange woman. Then, like a lightning strike, it's gone. He blinks and his head is startlingly, icily clear. Teh relief at the sudden lack of pain is dizzying. 

“Hello.” The woman greets again.

“Hail and well met.” Jaskier says, ovely formal. Though his head is much better now, his though aren't quite organised yet. “You healed me.” He realises. 

“Yes." She confirms. "I’m honestly surprised you were still alive to be healed. That was some brain damage.” She tells him. She seems pretty cheery about it. Jaskier thinks he should be.. insulted? Afraid? Awed? But both his words and his thoughts are not quite caught up yet.

“Thanks.” He says.

“You’re welcome.” She says. Jaskier breathes, in awe of the relief, now that his head is no longer aching and fuzzy. The woman, a fairy?, sits next to him in companionable silence. It stretches until the sky is slightly pinking and Jaskier has taken full, glorious stock of his entirely painless body. He glances to his left and sees she is still there.

“Are you really my fairy godmother?” Jaskier asks her. She turns to look at him. She’s attractive, but not otherworldly beautiful or anything. Is that weird, Jaskier wonders. Is a godmother like family?

“What makes a ‘real fairy godmother’?” She asks, a genuine question and honestly Jaskier has never really considered it. When he was six, in the stories he made up, she had a sparkly gown and wings and a wand. She’d appear in a cloud or purple smoke and sparkles and be his friend. She’d turn bullies into frogs and would conjure tarts out of thin air and they would sing the best song and everyone would want to come listen to them. But he hadn’t thought about fairy godmothers in years.

“I have no idea.” He admits on a laugh.

“Then I can neither confirm nor deny.” She smiles back at him, but doesn’t say or do anything else. The sun slowly rises and Jaskier feels his end come nearer. He wonders if she’s actually here, or whether he’s made her up because he doesn’t want to die alone. If she’s really here, shouldn’t she be able to maybe rescue him? He’s just about to gather his courage and ask he if she can save him, maybe? Though he is thankful to die with a clear mind instead (if she is real) if she can’t.

He doesn’t get to ask though, as suddenly the miller’s wife appears at the bars.

“Come on!” She hisses. “ We only have a few minutes!”

“What?!” Jaskier exclaims, he's more and more sure he's going mad, only to be shushed by Mari. “You did this!” He accuses her in a lower tone.

“Do you want out or not?” She growls back while fiddling with the lock. The door opens and Jaskier is both angry and headily relieved. He was getting out. Sure, he was livid at Mari, but certainly not enough to hang out of spite. He looks back at his fairy godmother, who is still sitting against teh dirt wall of teh cell. She looks amused before making a rude gesture to Mari. He then knows he’s the only one that sees her. It makes him a little sad.

“It was nice meeting you Jaskier.” She says, and not wanting to seem like a lunatic and change Mari’s mind, he just nods at her gratefully. He leaves her behind in the gaol as they sneak past a sleeping guard out into the world. She’s made up, so it’s not rude.

Jaskier runs for his life for the first time


	2. Fairy gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier recalls more occasions in which his fairy godmother plays a role.

Initially Jaskier had tried to forget his near execution, but it was entirely impossible. In the end, as he had been doing his entire life, he spun the tale into a ballad. A better version of the story, with a more satisfying ending. It wasn’t a happy ending, as he had made it into a tragedy of star-crossed lovers, but it was neater. Cleaner. No vomiting, for one. No dirt, no hallucinations. It was a tale where the hero died unjustly at the hands of the husband. The heroine grieved beautifully and tragically. The husband got his just desserts.. It was a good one. And it got a solid marks as well as solid reviews.

He’d left out any and all hints of magic or fairy godmothers. Which was maybe why she was still playing on his mind. He’d also realised he’d never asked her name, so all he could call her was ‘fairy godmother’. Which did nothing to make him feel less ridiculous. She had been, if memory served, decidedly un-fairy like. Not that Jaskier had ever met a real fairy, but she had seemed.. solidly robust. She had been dressed in what looked like shabby oversized trousers and a thick woollen sweater. She just hadn’t seemed very.. magical. Except off course the bit where she appeared out of nowhere in a cell. Or maybe she was just Jaskier’s hallucination. But then, wouldn't he have made her more magical??

In any case, he had been unable to write a satisfying tale or song or ending. He’d tried, but they were all too childish, to strange, to improbable or consisted entirely of plotholes. So his fairy godmother was a small, if permanent, itch at the back of his mind.

*

He was soon distracted by the scandal of one of the only female teachers at the university becoming pregnant while unmarried. Jaskier had been half in love with her, as he was with many, when he’d first been taught by her. Then, months later, they had started a discussion about musical theory that had ended in Agnes’ rooms. To be honest, Jaskier had expected to fall into bed with her, but he got something even better.

After many shots of a good, icily clear vodka, Agnes had played her violin for him. in school she taught the dry bones of music. Musical writing and scales and theory, but when she played... Oh sweet Melitele, she could play. Jaskier had only once before glimpsed a hint of true talent, in the middle of the only story his grandmother ever told him, but he recognised it immediately.

It was, it was immense. Awe inspiring and beautiful in its purest form. Raw and moving him almost immediately to tears. If there was anything holy in the world, it was this. Agnes played, only for about 10 minutes, and Jaskier worshipped. She stopped abruptly and the spell broke. Jaskier felt like he was dumped in a cold, slimy lake, and Agnes looked n pale and small. 

“Why?” He asked when he found his voice. “Why don’t you play? Perform? You have such a gift, such talent, it's.." Indescribable. "You would be famous all over the continent.” He breathed. Agnes avoided his eyes and put her instrument away with what seemed like a touch of fear.

“Music, true music, is magic. It’s power.” Agnes’ hands hovered over the violin case, her fingers twitched. Jaskier thought it was longing. “And it’s not for me. I can’t –“ She turned to him. “Go to bed Julian. Please forgot this.”

“Agnes.. I don’t understand. How can it not be for you? It obviously is! Did you hear yourself?” Jaskier was almost offended she would keep something this powerful to herself.

“You wouldn’t understand, no.” Agnes met his eyes and the notes were still strumming through his veins and for a minute he was sure he saw into another’s soul. there was something ancient and sad there. “Please Julian. Leave.” Agnes turned away. She was clearly done with him. 

He couldn’t help but scoff, sputter and wave his hands. But he left. And dropped her class.

So when the scandal happened, when Agnes was sent away from the university, without a violin case, university property, Jaskier noticed. He was left feeling deeply uncomfortable and unsatisfied. It was not fair. Not only was she being punished while the father of the baby, and really, everyone knew who he was, saw no consequence at all; she’d never have the chance to truly live her talent now. They had been flirting and friendly before that night and he knew her family had disowned her for wanting to be a teacher. She had no money, not many friends and lived at the university.

Her music, she’d once told him, was her only marketable skill. And if she could not teach and would not perform (could she even sing? Instruments were expensive, Jaskier mused.) she’d end up in the poorhouse. Or a brothel. It was just so wrong.

Had this event been an epic ballad, profession Strutz (utter cunt that he was) would be named and shamed. He’d lose his legitimate children to some wasting disease and his wife would give him the pox. He’d die destitute in a ditch somewhere. But Jaskier didn’t even put that one to paper. The idea made him slightly queasy. The Strutz children were completely innocent and Strutz himself, bastard, did not deserve that much misery. No one did, in real life, Jaskier felt.

He also thought of a song, a poem really, of Agnes. Down to her last coin, stumbling into a friendly inn. She’s be cold a weary and in desperation, asked if they had an instrument she could use to play for a meal. They would and she’s play even better than how she had for Jaskier. She’d easily earn a meal and a bed. And talk of her talent would spread. She’d be the most famous violinist of the continent. She and her child would live in luxury and her name would live on for a thousand years. But that story never really felt right either. 

Jaskier was unable to make a good song or story and in the end, he poured out a crystal clear, top tier vodka for Agnes and just sent out a desperate plea for her good fortune, maybe out to the gods of music.

*

Years later, he’d meet her again. She’s been settled in a small village that had some trouble with waterhags. She was married to the keeper of one of the inns, had several children and seemed… satisfied. Content. The night after Geralt dealt with the hags he meets her in the storeroom of the inn where she is preparing for the next day.

She tells him her story, they way real life happened. It starts similar to the one he made up, but instead of being discovered as a musician, she’s discovered by a tracker who tells her a distant cousin of her has died and left her a sum of money. Nothing extravagant, but enough for the son of the innkeeper to see her as a good match, illegitimate child or no. If he had written the story himself, he would consider it very badly done. Not enough adventure and not exactly much fleshing out of the story. It is, he will realise, not the story he would want for himself. At all. Still, he is happy Agnes is not dying of the pox somewhere.

“Will you play for me?” Jaskier tries his luck and to his surprise she agrees. She has no instrument of her own, so he loans her his lute. His elven lute. The one he loves more than, well, pretty much anything. She plays it skilfully and very well, but that is all. It’s good. Just good. They remain two people in a storeroom.

“I told you.” Agnes smiles. “It was not for me and now it’s gone.” She shrugs and smiles at what must be a devastated look on his face. “It’s alright. I only miss it sometimes.” Altogether this ending makes Jaskier a little sad, but it makes the story end properly, he thinks.

They fall into bed after that. Or, more like, on some sacks of flour. Jaskier can make love to this Agnes. Human, friendly Innkeep Agnes. It's a nice, satisfying bout. The Agnes that could have been is only there for a few seconds, she peeks out wild and free from somewhere deep inside.

Afterwards Jaskier pries for details, trying to make the story a bit more sensible. It seems like it should be a sensible story, if it can’t be an epic one. Agnes isn't interested. She tells him this was a mistake (many people tell him that really, he's used to it), but maybe, he thinks, it's not about the sex. He asks a few more questions. 

“I don’t know Julien!” he’s annoying Agnes now. He hasn’t been called Julien in years. “It was just some bounty hunter that found me and gave me a sack of coin.” Agnes throws him his breeches. That’s odd, Jaskier thinks. Normally a tracker would just retrieve people, the handing out of inheritances would be left to the alderman.

“What kind of bounty hunter?” Jaskier wonders out loud.

“Oh for-“ Agnes agitatedly pull on the laces of her dress. “A woman. Dark hair, dark eyes. She had the papers and the coin and I desperately needed both. What does it matter? It doubt there is another Agnes Szbuda out there whose inheritance I stole.”

“No.” Jaskier agrees. “Probably not.” Agnes throws the rest of his clothes at him.

“Hurry up, I need to lock the storeroom.” She prods him. While he is fastening his boots Agnes adds;

“You know it’s funny." Agnes relents for minute. "She, the bounty hunter I mean, had the same crooked tooth you have.” Agnes taps her upper left canine. Something freezes inside Jaskier. Like a startled hare thinking about whether to run. “And tree earrings.” Agnes adds fondly. _Fairy Godmother_ Jaskier sees her very clearly in his mind now. He hadn’t even registered the crooked tooth back in that dingy cell.. He prods his own tooth with his tongue, he’s always had good teeth, he thinks with no small amount of satisfaction. The one crooked one was hardly a detraction.

No, he tells himself, many people have crooked teeth. Don’t be ridiculous Jaskier. His mind is in turmoil when he joins Geralt in their shared room after a perfunctory goodbye. No. Let it be a sensible, boring, comfortable story.

Many years in the future a musical prodigy will sweep the continent. It’s a young woman whose violin playing will quiet babies and make adults weep. Whole concert halls will leave as changed men and women. More than one person will claim to have experienced the divine. Jaskier will go to see her, on Ciri’s recommendation. And it won’t take him long to know. It’s a story he doesn’t touch for a long time.

*

The third time Jaskier’s godmother affects his life, he’s pretty sure anyway, he calls on her purposely. It’s the second time he’s met Geralt and tagged along. They are meeting with a Council elder about disappearing townspeople. Dinner is called for. And wine. And Jaskier is not sure why or how, but he knows there is something wrong. He glances at Geralt, who is grumpy and monosyllabic, but seems to find nothing amiss.

The food is served and it is rich and varied and smells heavenly. The wine is deep and dark and heady, and Jaskiers anxiety racks up. Geralt grunts at him, an enquiry. Jaskier doesn’t know what to say. The servants plate the food and the councilman and Geralt dig in. Jaskier mouth fills with saliva but he can’t bring himself to take a bite.

“Is there something amiss?” The council elder asks. Jaskier is probably imagining the undertone of threat and worry.

“Ah. No, not at all my good man.” Jaskier raises his spirits, ready to perform. “This is a bit embarrassing, but my family has a this habit. Somewhere between custom and superstition.” He starts. His mind wildly racing to make up a story. A good one. Geralt thankfully does not comment. “We set aside a plate for our absent loved ones.” Jaskier starts and does just that. He places meat and bread and vegetables on his side plate and pours some wine in his water glass. He then spins a story. He tries to make it light and funny, with the appropriate exasperation as well as traditionalism. He invents a great uncle Viktor with a rheumatic dog as companion as well as a tragic young cousin Belkis and a few others to pad the story. In his mind they are all his godmother. It works though. The council elder relaxes and laughs as intended. Geralt is broodingly, but blessedly silent.

When he’s finished the story Jaskier toasts his companions and with his heart hammering in his throat he takes a sip of wine. And a chunk of meat. And nothing happens. They finish the meal, Jaskier has eaten his fill. Geralt has eaten enough for three people. Jaskier doesn’t have so much as a burp. Geralt is Geralt. The councilman seems to have become somewhat anxious, but mayeb that is just indigestion. Geralt accepts the offer of accommodation in the town hall, while Jaskier tries to say they would much rather stay in the inn. Or teh whorehouse for that matter. But they get a room each in the t own hall and Geralt promises to start his investigation tomorrow.

When he closes the door to his room and turns around he yelps as he finds his fairy godmother sitting on the bed, his blanket over her shoulders, eating off the little side plate.

“You’re right.” She says, chewing. “This is poisoned. Nice seasoning on the hare though.” She comments and sips the wine. “Bit spicy this. Probably to mask the valerian root.”

“Fuck!” He exhales, Geralt is an influence on him. “Sorry. Shit. You’re here.” He pauses. “Am I going to die?”

“Presumably yes, at some point.” His fairy godmother says in between sopping some bread in the leftover juices on the plate. “But not from this dinner. I neutralised the poison across the whole table. Presumably your host has built up a tolerance and your large grumpy friend seems to be naturally immune, but better safe than sorry.” She stands up and places the plate and glass near the washbasin.

"Semi-natural?” She seems to get back on topic. “There’s something about him, your friend.” She says.

“He’s a Witcher.” Jaskier says. He’s not sure what else to say. People often think he’s never at a loss for words, which is mostly true in the face of danger and such. But it’s just this utterly strange idea of him having a magic fairy godmother that has him searching for words. For things to ask and wonder, all of it blanketed with the absolutely terrifying notion that he’ll end up as barking mad as his real uncle.

“What’s a Witcher?” She asks and the question takes him aback, You’d think fairy godmothers would be acquainted with other supernatural beings. Or semi-supernatural, be that as it may.

“You know, a Witcher.” He’s met with a blank look. “A monster hunter.” He elaborated. His fairy godmother shrugs.

“Alright.” She then cocks her head, as if hearing something. “I’m sorry to cut this short, I have to go.” She gives him an apologetic smile. _Crooked tooth!_ His mind pipes up. “Do you need me for anything else?”

“Er.. No.” Jaskier can’t think of anything right now. Other than that he really wants to poke her and see if she’s solid. Walk over to Geralt’s room with her in tow and ask if the Witcher can see her. She drops the blanket and puts it back on the bed. He sees she’s dressed in floaty green dress with small white flowers embroidered on it. White fabric flower earrings and he now notices her elaborate updo. She looks like she’s going to a feast or dance.

“Wait, sorry. What’s your name?”

“Oh!” She gives a laugh. “I never said, did I?” Jaskier shakes his head. “Well, it changes every few decades, but for now it’s Alena.” She walks over to the door, opens it. “Good to see you again Dandelion.” Her eyes crinkle. “Till next time.” She walks out, down the hallway as if she belongs there. As if that is the normal way to attend a fairy party. Jaskier closes the door and tries to shake the cobwebs loose in his mind. Determined to put it out of his mind until after the mystery of the vanishing townspeople and the fantastic song he is sure to write about it, he falls onto the bed. He does such a good job, he never thinks to tell Geralt about teh poisoned food. 

He should have asked her to stay, actually. Presuming she’s actually real, because later that night, or early next morning, he’s lifted from his bed, gagged and tied, and the councilman tries to sacrifice him to some ancient deity. Turns out he’s not the only one with quirky family traditions.

Alena does not show up to rescue him, but Geralt does, which is better for the song anyway. Still he's still not entirely sure if he has a fairy godmother, or whether the cook just decided to go easy on the poison that daye. 

*

The next time he calls Alena, he’s pissed. Langered. Three sheets to the wind. Absolutely plastered. And, unusually, not happy about it. He’s just realised he’s in love with Geralt. Or, much worse, still in love with Geralt. Jaskier loves widely and generously and easily. He loves many people, as they are so varied and unique and so many of them are lovely in their own ways. He enjoys love, and making love. He enjoys the experience, the rush, the song and the story, and then… lets it go. He’s not interested in any kind of long term commitment.

But Geralt… Geralt has somehow ‘Hmm’ed and ‘Fuck’ed his way into a more permanent spot in his heart. Of all the people on the whole continent and his heart wants the biggest, grumpiest, most unavailable one of all. Fuck.

It turns out Alena shows up for cheap, homebrew as well.

“Can you make him love me?” His voice asks, without his permission. He’s immediately horrified at the question and tries to sputter an explanation. He’s silenced by the way Alena looks at him with piercing eyes.

“Do you want me to?” The question shakes his bones and compels a horrified ‘No’. From his lips.

“No. No. Off course not.” Jaskier feels nauseated at the idea of Geralt pantomiming some shade of affection. Of acting out love and not really wanting him. He’d rather be genuinely tolerated that falsely loved. Alena released his gazes.

“Good.” She sits next to him and puts her hand over his. “I can’t. Just so you know. No one does. Love a magic all on its own.” She pauses and pours herself a drink. Downs it and squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry your heart is hurting, flower.” 

“Hrrgh.” Jaskier comments and sloshily toasts in teh direction of his fairy godmother. They drink. They get tossed out of the inn and then walk off together. Alena produces more drink from somewhere and they keep drinking until the sun comes up. Jaskier passes out at some stage and when he wakes up he is alone in a field. Or a meadow more like. Surrounded by dandelions and no one else. Both Alena and Geralt have gone.

It takes him three days to shake the hangover, but over the course of those three days her remembers bits and pieces of the stories Alena told him. When he’s sober he writes a love song that outlasts them all.


	3. Magical women

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alena is not the only worry that Jaskier has

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier is an unusually well preserved bard.

Ever since then, Alena pops in and out of his life, not unlike Geralt. They are the only two constant's in Jaskier's life. Even if they are very inconstant.

Very unlike Geralt, he does not fall in love with her. He’d expected to, she's very attractive and kind and she genuinely seems to like him, but he doesn’t. He loves her though. Rather like family, he supposes.

She appears when he needs help, yes. Usually when he's not with Geralt and usually not of the monster variety. But also, when.. not.

There is this instance when he's travelling on his own. It's fall and it's stormy and he's near the coast on some type of crag. There is a small village, tiny even, he takes refuge in. He easily earns his room and board and a little extra. The storm rages on and get worse and on the fourth day the walkway down to the lower fields blows away. The sheep get caught and the sea is rising. Even Jaskier knows they'll drown. They won't be able to build a new walkway quick enough. And with the sheep dying, so will the village. Its economy is almost solely based on the wool trade. They’ll make it through the winter, Jaskier thinks, but when spring comes and there are no sheep to shave, lean times will follow. People will move away in search of work and food. And the village will disappear. It's sad. And the people know.

Jaskier tries to write songs that combines gallows humour with hardy spirit, all the while unhappily suppressing the knowledge of several hundred sheep drowning in the raging storm outside. He can't even in good conscious accept his evening meal.

The storm breaks some time during the night and the villagers all trudge down to the cliffs. They may be able to salvage some mutton. To everyone's surprise, Jaskier included, there is a flock of live sheep below. Apparently there is a cave? That goes up into the cliff face? The sheep managed to find refuge and only a small handful were lost. It's very close to a song he, and the rest of the pub, sang near the end of the night. Some wild, improbable song that had fairies spirit away the sheep to another world where they would be saved. The would produce double wool and birth twin lambs forever more.

 _Huh_ Jaskier thinks. Does Alena like sheep? But he does not ponder it for long He isn’t stupid, careless maybe, but not actually dense. He has had his fill of witchcraft accusations and makes himself scarce posthaste.

Then there is the time when he's running, pursued by arrows, yes, that was all on him. It was rather romantic though.

The time he gets caught in a bear trap (his ankle scars badly, but is not ruined forevermore, as expected).

She helps him find Geralt when he goes missing “How did you even lose him? He’s – Alena makes an expansive motion with her arms – massive!”.

She mourns with him when a favoured lover dies unexpectedly.

Jaskier never get a concussion again in his life.

Then, one day; “This horse is immortal” Alena states, nonplussed. She’s rubbing Roach on the neck, which is very unfair as Roach only likes Geralt, and apparently fairy godmothers. “

Eh?” Now that Jaskier thinks about it, Geralt and Roach have been Geralt and Roach for.. well, as long as Jaskier has known them.

“Why the horse?” Alena asks.

“I have no idea.” Jaskier thinks it may be because Roach is the only living thing Geralt may love. “Must be a Witcher thing or potion or something.”

“Uhuh.” Alena gives him a particular look and Jaskier feels as if she’s trying to tell him something, but he’s very clearly not getting the hint. But how would Jaskier know anything about magic and immortal horses?

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize that while Roach is an unusually well preserved horse, Jaskier is an unusually well preserved bard.

“Am I immortal?” He asks Alena. They are pressed against the wall of an alcove, hidden behind a curtain while lovely Nastya’s husband is calling for Jaskier’s head. He hadn’t even slept with her yet.

“No.” Alena says in a low voice. “ If he finds you, you are definitely dead.”

“Well, yes.” Jaskier begins, trying to squeeze himself tighter to the wall and keeping his toes from sticking out while booted feet with gleaming swords thunder by. “But I mean..” he can’t believe he’s saying this. “I don’t think I’ve aged. Recently. Or ever. Well.. since I was like, twenty two? Maybe?” He tries to think of his father at thirty seven. Of anyone at thirty seven really and he doesn’t look like them. He looks.. well, in the prime of his life.

“I haven’t aged either.” Alena says while trying to discreetly peek around the edge of the curtain. No, Jaskier thinks, but maybe because that’s because you’re magic. Or a figment of my imagination! “Neither has Geralt. Or that lovely woman in Achten.” Alena seems to be missing the point entirely as all those people are not human, like Jaskier. “Ooh, coast is clear, let’s go!”

It’s not something Jaskier ever gets a satisfying answer to. He doesn’t get a satisfying answer to a lot of questions, really. He tries to ask Geralt. Bring up the fact of healthy, sprightly, ancient-for-a-horse Roach, but Geralt is entirely oblivious to the concept. He seems entirely oblivious to the concept of aging at all. And maybe that’s it. Maybe there is something so magically strong in the Witcher vibes, that if affects those closest to them. They are, at least, friends. Of that Jaskier is sure. He hopes.

There are many other questions that Jaskier never gets answers to. It is, in part, because usually there are more pressing matters at hand when Alena appears. But he wonders. What calls to her? Would she come if there was no food? No drink? Would she come without a song or story? Does it have to be a good tale? He thinks not, as she appears once after a single dirty limerick.

His heartache was playing up something fierce that time. He’s in love with Geralt. He loves Geralt. He should be used to love and heartache, here, with his Witcher, it’s different. Mostly, Jaskier is content with the way things are. He and Geralt meet, adventure, part ways, adventure and meet again. The love, and it’s a massive thing, lives inside Jaskier. He’s given it a home inside his being and mostly they live together in symbiosis.

But every once in a while something happens that really underscores how much Jaskier is in love and how much Geralt is not and the thing inside him cuts or smothers him. Alena is a good drinking companion and whenever he drinks with her, he ends the night on a bed or a pallet, not in a trough or a ditch.

With every instance, from day to day really, Jaskier wonder if she's real or if she's some kind of second personality. A hallucination or a spirit that lives inside his bones. All the things she does.. it could be just him? It could be coincidence? He knows what Geralt thinks about conincidences, but they do happen. They do! He wants her to be real, off course, but there are enough times when he's alone in the dark that he's pretty sure she's not.

*

His actual problems however, are real. And varied. Once, when Jaskier is captured by a witch in hopes of encountering Geralt, and he’s tied to a stake and his prospects are looking rather glum. He sings ‘ding dong, the witch is dead’ and recites poems and fairytales where witches meet all sorts of unfortunate ends. Partially this is to annoy the witch and partially because he hopes that even without any sort of food and drink it calls out to Alena.

It doesn’t. What he gets may be worse than the original witch. What he gets is Yennefer of fucking Vengerberg.

The battle that ensues is truly impressive. The local witch must be stronger than expected, because he’s seen Yennefer in action and that woman packs a punch. Still all the while Yennefer is fighting the witch, he can only think about how he really, really wished Alena had come to his rescue. Or Geralt. Or _anyone else_. He’s fair certain Yennefer is more dangerous and more mercurial than a local witch who was only looking for a simple blood sacrifice.

Yennefer wins, off course, and the witch dies a rather thorough death. Yennefer takes her time going through the witch’s stuff, taking amulets and trinkets and potions for herself. Jaskier is in a very deep debate with himself about whether to ask her to release him or take his chances on a random passerby.

She eventually turns to him, meeting his eyes. Melitele, she is beautiful. And terrifying. He gets what Geralt sees in her, and he supposes being a near indestructible Witcher may make her less scary, and really, Jaskier is no stranger to unwise romantic decisions, but sweet Muses, if he never sees Yennefer again, it will be too soon.

“Heard you caterwauling.” Yennefer greets him. “Not a fan of witches?”

“Not when they are trying to kill me, no.” Jaskier narrows his eyes at her. Fear is a good thing. Fear keeps you alive. But fear is also an emotion and Jaskier has a lot of emotions. He parks the ‘Yennefer is terrifying’ emotion next to the ‘I love Geralt’ emotion and hope they’re happy together. He focuses on his wits.

“Perhaps you should have told her you left your cat on the stove and she would have let you go to take care of it.” There is amusement playing on Yennefer’s face.

“My cat’s dead.” Jaskier tells Yennefer, as if its her fault, from that one time. Internally he is shaking himself, what is wrong with him?!

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He can hear the laugh in her voice. She gestures and his bindings disappear. It’s sudden and Jaskier has been tied up for a long while. He falls on his face directly at Yennefer’s feet. Wonderful. He scrambles upright with as much dignity as he can muster.

“Where is Geralt?” She asks.

“Don’t know. Not here.” He tells her. “Can’t you just..?” He makes some hand motions. Yennefer curls a lip and Jaskier squeaks backwards.

“Never you mind what I can do.” She tells him and thankfully portals away with a last lingering glare.

*

He is, unfortunately, not shot of Yennefer of Godsdamned Vengerberg. He can live with the times he encounters her in the company of Geralt. Yes, it stings when Geralt leaves him for the more attractive company of Yennefer, but he’s long since resigned himself to just being Geralt’s friend and with how wrapped up they are in each other, the chances of venomous snakes biting Jaskier’s balls is greatly reduced. It’s the times he encounters her alone that are the problem.

“You look old.” Yennefer has never once simply greeted him with a 'hello'. He’s back in Oxenfurth for a bit, having consented to teach a winter semester. He’s in his office, well, broom closet with desk, and Yennefer is there dressed in a graduation gown, like this is a fancy dress party.

“No, I do not!” He protests before he can stop himself. She smiles a satisfied little smile and meets his eyes. She knows. Jaskier thinks. And now she knows he knows too.

“What have you done?” Her voice is low and seductive and she trails two sharp nails down his jaw. She’s sitting on his desk now and something animal inside him is very interested. “Or what have you had done to you?”

“Me? Nothing! I mean, I’ve travelled with Geralt and maybe.. something, happened? I don’t know.” Jaskier admits. Then, because fear never finds quite enough purchase in his gut. “Same thing that happened to the horse.” He only sounds a little bitter.

“Yes!” Yennefer hops off the desk. “You noticed as well. Geralt seems to think all horses live however long their owners need them.” She turns back to stare into his eyes. Can mages read minds? Even if they can’t, he’s sure Yennefer can. “You’re speaking the truth.” She proclaims.

“Off course I am.” Why ever would he lie? Yennefer inclines her head and sits on the single chair in his office, looking at him. She says nothing. Jaskier is getting slightly hot and bothered. He’s pretty sure she’s not wearing anything under the gown and Yennefer smirks. He may have indulged in some fantasies about this office and pretty students needing better grades. Only in his fantasies though, because when it happened in real life one, he was so startled and annoyed he threw the student out. David was such a terrible and lazy poet that he could have been the best fuck in the whole world and Jaskier still would have failed him. The silence stretches on.

“Can I help you?” he eventually asks her. Something in her demeanor shifts, from seductive to pensive. She’s a mercurial woman, Yennefer is.

“You wrote a poem.” She begins. “about the incubus.” It had been a joint adventure with Geralt and Yennefer. It had been a very sad and sordid tale and no heroes to be found. Not even Geralt, really.

“I did, yes.” Jaskier agreed. “I’ve written many poems. This is a good one. It got published in a collection, as well as the papers. It’s also in one of the textbooks. Not one of mine, that would be really narcissistic, but it’s there. Did you-“

“It was kind.” Yennefer says. “Beautiful.”

“Oh.” Jaskier doesn’t know quite what to say, it seems to be a condition of his around magical women. “Thank you.” He knows Yennefer is a person and not just a scary witch, on an intellectual level, but he never really felt it before now. Geralt does he supposes.

“Tell me, bard.” The atmosphere in the room changes abruptly again. “Do you have the stamina as well as the appearance of a twenty year old?” The Yennefer emotions and the Geralt emotions must have gotten entirely too chummy, deep inside his being, as his libido rears his head and shouts y _es, yes, yes!_

“I do.” Jaskier tells her.

Yennefer is, off course, and excellent lover. And so is he. After what could be weeks, the both of them are catching their breaths, spread out on the floor amid scattered papers and books. Jaskier looks at her and feels himself falling. _Oh no_.

“Do you love him?” Yennefer suddenly asks. Jaskier’s wits are sill scattered about along with the contents of his office, so he can only say what is true.

“Yes. Do you?” He feels compelled to ask. It is what Geralt deserves. And scary witch or no, if Yennefer is looking to hurt him Jaskier will… do something.

“I don’t know what love is.” Yennefer sighs and Jaskier’s heart breaks a little more.

Later, when he gets back to his bedroom, Alena is there, waiting.

“Was that really wise?” She asks.

“No. Of course the fuck it wasn’t.” Jaskier says and falls facedown on his bed. Gods save him from magical women.


	4. It all goes to shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier loses all the important people in his life, and gains one other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timeline is confusing, but so it is in the show, so.. we'll call it canon..

It all goes to shit on a mountain. Or, it starts to go to shit on a mountain anyway. Geralt apparently hates him and sends him away, and unlike some previous quarrels, this one feels very real. It cuts Jaskier deep. So deep that he thinks he doesn’t have much more heart to give. His relationship with Yennefer briefly intensifies, but Geralt is a big, surly elephant in the room. His bulk lies wretched and sulky between them and he loses Yennefer less than three months after Geralt. Jaskier goes back to Oxenfurth. And there he loses Alena as well.

Oxenfurt, once the place he would call home, is not like it was. Old professors are older. Old schoolmates are professors. He regularly gets mistaken for a student. It’s not until he wakes up in the small room he gets with his teaching position and sees Baba Yaga that a feeling of dread start spreading through his veins. Baba Yaga the cat was mouser that lived in Oxenfurt. She was ugly as sin. Three legged, torn ear and crooked tail. Patchy fur from what Jaskier thought were burn marks. One eye. Jaskier absolutely adored Baba Yaga as a boy. 

When he’d first come to Oxenfurt, she’d been on patrol in his dorms. He, unlike some boys, didn’t mind sharing his blankets with the ugly and cranky mog. Baba Yaga would sleep in his bed and bring him big, juicy rats as thanks. He appreciated her concern very much indeed and always got rid of the rats outside her view. She was company. He was a lonely child and a lonely adolescent and Baba Yaga was possibly what kept him from going insane that first year in a new school.

One of the first proper poems he’d written had been about Baba Yaga. It had been a child’s tale, praising the cat’s resourcefulness and cunning, how she kept going in spite of all her misfortunes, her skill at catching mice and rats. It had gotten a decent mark, however professor de Jacht has remarked he was here to study serious poetry as an art, not child’s stories.

It had however been very popular with his classmates though. The poem was dedicated to Baba Yaga, but could be applied to many a cat. It turned out he was not the only lonely boy in the school and many of them took comfort in the school's cat population. Lines of the poem were recited and more boys made friends with local pest control. One classmate had even painted the verse on the dormitory wall.

He’d been back at Oxenfurt before, but this time he felt very much like the first time again. Alone. Other. Like he wasn’t quite sure he belonged here, but had nowhere else to go (never back to his family, never). He’s visited his old dorm and seen the faded poem on the wall. Absentmindedly he strummed his lute and made op a melody right then and there. When he finished he noticed he had an audience. They praised in that tough adolescent boy kind of way and he accepted it gracefully. It was nice to know his first poem was still appreciated.

When he woke up the next morning, Baba Yaga sat on his chest and blinked her one green-yellow eye at him. Which was impossible. Baba Yaga was dead. She had to be. She'd been old when he was fourteen, never mind now that he was approaching forty. With trembling fingers he reached out and she felt like the Baba Yaga he remembered. She acted like Baba Yaga and, sweet Melitele, she _smelled_ like Baba Yaga when he took her in his arms.

He stroked her patchy fur while trying not to have a panic attack and thought of sheep in previously undiscovered caves. Roach the trusty companion-to-a-hero horse he immortalised in song. Beggars who’d come to find unexpected treasure and all the lucky and coincidental things that happened in his life. He also thought of the nasty little verse he’d written where Markus of Kent got the pox from a whore with three teeth. The ribald jokes and rhymes that drunk young men find funny. _Oh Gods please._ He thinks of all the horrible, scathing, nasty, _violent_ ways he’s written his emotion away from him, and he vomits.

Then he calls Alena. He doesn’t bother with any sort of food or ritual or song, he just yells. Not out loud, but in his mind. One long, loud scream. _See me._

“Holy Shit, what?!” Alena walks into his rooms. She looks frazzled. Thinner and tired.

“Is this a magic cat?” Jaskier demands, holding Baba Yaga out to her. Alena pauses, frowns.

“No..?” She seems nonplussed. Jaskier takes a deep, deep breath to steady himself. Calm himself down. He is so sick of non-answers and avoidance.

“Then tell me, oh fairy godmother, did I somehow create a cat out of thin air by writing a poem about her?” Jaskier nearly growls, could she, for once in his life, just give him a straight answer?

“Did you?” Alena asks surprised, she sounds slightly giddy at the prospect. Oh, fuck that. 

“Stop! Just stop! Stop playing with me! Just tell me.” Alena’s face blanks, she straightens her spine and seems to study him. Defiantly Jaskier puts Baba Yaga back on his bed, spreads his arms and does a slow turn. Go on, look all you want. Alena glares, shrugs, and then walks over to the bed and gently scratches Baba Yaga’s ears.

“Yes.” She then confirms. “I seems you did.” A stone settles in Jaskier’s stomach and panic starts buzzing through his veins.

“What the absolute fuck?!” He yells. What is he going to do? Oh, saints preserve him, what has he _done_? “Why didn’t you tell me? Why-.”

“How did you not know?” Alena looks at him as if she's never seen him before. She asks the question as if he just asked why she never told him milk comes from cows.

“How was I supposed to know?!” Jaskier he retorts. How _was_ he supposed to know? Damn it all, you foolish bard, he scolds himself. Off course he was supposed to know! He lives in a world filled with mages and witches and wise men and women and all sorts of magic. How did he not realise? Why? Why did he, a grown man, believe rather in a fairy tale than the idea that maybe, maybe he just had magic of his own? His grandmother tells him a story once. Once! And..

“Oh. Oh gods.” Jaskier sinks down onto the bed, head in hand. “I really thought you were real.” She’s not, off course. She’s an imaginary scapegoat. “Go away. Get out of my head.”

“Jaskier.” Alena sounds very far away as he tries to think about all the things he’s attributed to her. How many people has he hurt? Flung on wildly different paths for his own amusement? “I am most cer-“

“OUT!” He explodes. “Leave me be! Let me in peace! Get out, get out, get OUT!”

Alena leaves and Jaskier is alone.

*

He then does what he never though he would and goes home. He resigns at Oxenfurt effective immediately, gathers up every scrap of paper he’s ever come in contact with, and books passage back to the Pankratz estate. Only the lute. His elven lute that he loves. He suddenly thinks he understand how Agnes felt all those years ago. His hands shake and he longs to play more fiercely that he’s ever wanted anything in his life.

 _Music is magic_. Agnes had said. _Words have power._ He suddenly recalled Alena saying that a million godsdamned times. He just hadn’t fucking _listened._ He hadn’t understood Agnes back then, but he thought, maybe now he did. Still, it would be rude to leave the lute. It had been a gift. A gift of a people dying out and he could not just abandon it.

*

So he went home and his grandmother was dead. So was his father and thank fuck for that. Jaskier has three younger sisters and the middle one, Jana, had inherited. Jela, the youngest had married and moved to her husband's estate and Julia, the oldest, had apparently run off with a travelling bounty hunter. Had he written that? He wondered. The world was rife with songs about star-crossed affairs and fair maidens running away with unsuitable lovers. It was a whole genre of song. Dozens of them existed before he was even born. But he had written more than one himself.. fuck. Fuck!

He hadn’t been home, or communicated with home, since he’d left for Oxenfurt at fourteen. He hadn’t had much contact with his sisters before that either, his father keeping their educations separate. Still, he had never been officially disinherited, so he supposed he had a right to a quarter of the estate. His family was awfully wealthy and having travelled on nothing but his skills had shown him just how obscene that wealth was. He hardly wanted a quarter of it all. he just needed enough to keep him warm and fed while he made things right.

Jana, it turned out, looked very much like his grandmother. She _was_ very much like grandmother; brusque and rather cold. She took his arrival in stride though, like it was a minor annoyance and not the prodigal son returning after twenty five years looking for a handout. She gives him grandmother’s old room and includes him into the household as if he's only been away for a few weeks. It's easier than Jaskier expected. 

His initial plan had been to get some coin, find a room in a boarding house and start a plan. But, without the presence of his cunt of a father, the stepmother that always swatted at him and the icy presence of his grandmother, he found he did not need to find a boarding house. The relationship between him and his sister was awkward, like they were two Geralts, drawn to each other, but unable to find the words to say. They both seemed to want to speak, to have a relationship,but the chasm was wide. Mostly Jaskier works on his plan. 

The plan is really rather simple; re-trace his steps, figure out what he’s done, and try and make it right. In his time at home he wildly vacillates between taking a vow of silence, never singing or writing again, and taking out his lute and just going bug-wild trying out what he can do. (He had, temporarily, tried to blame it on the lute, a magic, elven lute; but there were at least four instances he could think of where there had been oddly happenings and no lute involved).

In the end, in the drafty cold room that used to be his grandmothers, and with a proper headache from arguing with himself, he wrote a folksy little song about a _warm, well insulated_ room. The draft stroked icy fingers down his neck the entire time. He was both elated and disappointed at the same time.

Later that night he woke up sweating. The room was nearly simmering with heat. _Fuck me._ He was both elated and disappointed at the same time.

*

He sets off. Jana gives him a horse which he is sorely tempted to name ‘Crab’, but she’s already called Ronnie for whatever reason, and he may as well not confuse the poor dear. It’s an odd road he walks those few years. He’s alone, by choice, and celibate, also by choice, but not one consciously made. There are big, human shaped holes in his heart and every time he falls in love he is tempted to write, and he just _can't._ He’s a popular, and well known bard, but he doesn’t perform anymore. It's awkward dodging people. He’s also looking for things of which he doesn’t know what they look like. He doesn’t know how to tell if he influenced an event or not. He has no idea what magic looks like. He longs to ask Alena, but considering she’s entirely made up, she wouldn’t answer him anyway.

Along the road he travels, he finds several things; Agnes has died, a plain, common death after a plain, common life. He still can’t give it a proper place. He’s a good musician. Very good, even if he does say so himself, but he’s honest enough to know he would never be _that_ talented. And she had just… let it go. Then again, he himself hasn'twritten a thing in almost two years, longer than he can remember. But beautiful music and magic-he-doesn't-know-he's-doing are not the same thing. At all. 

Learning of her death spurs him to lean into his talents. Carefully, while trying to find places where he and Geralt camped, alone if the middle of glades and forests, he tries a different kind of composing. He tries to somehow learn the difference between a song and a _song._ He receives mixed results. He tries to sing a pig on a spit into existence once, but what he gets an entire herd of wild boar looking to have him for dinner. He ends up spending the night in a tree. That was obviously a _song,_ but not with the intended result. Then, when he reaches the village, there is a communal feast going on because the hunters had been unusually effective.

Later, he finds that the village on the crag is gone. It looks razed, Jaskier can’t find it within himself to look too closely, but there is not a single sheep or person left. Soldiers or monsters or even some lord who was bored, he doesn't want to know really. The evidence points to violent death instead of natural moving on. He leaves, the place is probably now home to a number of Ghouls and Gravesneaks and other death-and-misery feeding fiends. Jaskier doesn’t believe in Destiny. It’s good for songs and tales and stuff, but in real, actual, life, it’s ridiculous. There is no all-powerful guiding force that rules what happens. There just isn’t. It's just coincidence. 

In the end, over the course of his travels he’s not sure if he’s made a difference at all. Nothing follows the exact letter of the things he's written. There are, thankfully, no deaths he'd written in moments of passion. He encounters Marcus of Kent, who is a perfectly healthy lech, if satisfyingly middle aged. he doesn't seem to have caused slaughter by making up battles or horrible accidents or storms or missed harvests, just because he needed some drama in his writing. In most cases he’s not sure he’s done much at all. There are a few things he knows he’s affected for certain like no ageing for himself or Roach and Baba Yaga the cat, but he's aching, breathtakingly relieved that he's not a force of evil in the world.

*

Ever since Geralt 's Child Surprise, Jasier goes to Cintra about once a year. Queen Calanthe seems to seriously consider doing him grave bodily harm every time, but in the end allows him to play for two days. He presumes its only because Geralt is not with him. Cirilla, the Child Surprise, looks very like her mother.. and a little like Geralt. Something about how she can set her jaw, the pale, pale hair, the intensity of a look. They interact only a little, he makes up funny rhymes and songs for her, but he likes her a lot.

“You’d think she was your Child Surpise.” A less than sober Calanthe mutters once. He makes some non-commital noises where he probably shoudl have clear, in no uncertain terms, absolutely not.

*

When his plan is nearly completed, he visits the Countess the Stael, tentatively. The last time he was there was a good four years ago, with Yennefer who had followed him for reasons only known to herself.

“Is it tacky to sleep with both mother and son?” Jaskier had mused out loud back then. The ‘son’ was in bed besides him and Yennefer was lazily brushing her hair in the nude.

“Yes.” She’d laughed. “If you’re some commoner.” She'd leaned over the passed out son and kissed him wickedly. “And we’re not common.”

Off course the Countess found out, he was fair certain Yennefer had let it slip on purpose, and had set her guards on them both. Yennefer had found it funny. it had been, come to think of it, the last he'd seen her. Sharing a young Count of Stael had been too much and entirely unlike sharing a broody Witcher. 

This visit possibly goes even worse. He’s welcomed, given a meal, invited to the Countess’ rooms.. and there she hands him a toddler.

“Her name is Dahlia.” The Countess tells him. “She’s yours.”

“I- what?” Jaskier awkwardly holds the child, who hangs solemnly by her armpits. “I don’t understand.”

“Tsk little songbird.” The Countess gives him a wry smirk. “You’d think you’d know about the birds and the bees, given your long and varied past.” _Whore_ Jaskier her it quite clearly. Off course he knows about the birds and the bees. He's always been very careful not to have any bastards. He also knows that women approaching sixty shoudl not be having any babies.

“But, you…” Jaskier bites his tongue.

“Yes, I am a bit long in the tooth.” The Countess glares. “Those days should have been over. They _were_ over..” She confirms shoots him a look of disgust, The countess then turns and throws a duffel at his feet. Jaskier sees a stuffed sheep peek out of it. “Take it up with your witch.” _Yennefer?_ Oh, he knew it had been a bad idea. Jaskier looks back at the child he’s still holding, looks into her solemn purple eyes.

“That’s.. impossible.” He searches the countess’ face, the child's face. The child is unimpressed, the countess is defiant and, he thinks, scared.

“I birthed her." The Countess says. "Do you know what you did? The Count has been dead for over a decade. Do you know how mortifying it was to tell my children? Do you know the issues she’s caused for the line of succession?” Jaskier hadn’t really paid attention to her woes bout that, but he vaguely remembered something about the Countess having her own inheritance and her estate not being fond of de Stael. “I had to stay hidden inside for months. I had to pretend she was my chambermaid’s get.. She has no place here. Take her.” The Countess demands.

“I beg your pardon?” And Jaskier thought destiny could not throw him any more surprises.. “I can’t just take her! She’s a baby..”

“Take her, or I am sending her off the Continent.” The Countess said, her voice breaking. Jaskier wondered just how much her estate, her people, disliked de Stael and his son. The child, _Dahlia_ , still hung in his arms, a little frown between her eyebrows. Oh, he knew what it was like to be unwanted. Disliked. He lifted her closer, settled her on his hip. Dahlia gave him a wary side-eye.

“Alright.” He agrees and something wraps around his heart, his very being. He's not sure he can be a father, but, he figures, as long as he is nothing like his own father, he must be doing alright. Also, Destiny was not a thing. It's not. “Do you want me to write? She’s you-“

“I have five children.” The Countess straightened and sent him a steely glare. He presumed those five were begat by de Stael, he’d never really cared much about her offspring until the son started flirting with him. “Get out. Or I’ll have you thrown out.” He's dismissed. Dahlia is dismissed. They leave together through the servant't entrance and maybe, just maybe, Jaskier can understand Geralt's reluctance to accept a child thrown at him a bit more. 

He went back to Pankratz after that. he didn't have many more answers, but he was a whole child richer and she consumed him more than any fairy godmother ever could.

*

As for fairy godmothers, Alena stayed away, as asked, during he years he travelled, barring one incident. On the road back to Pankratz, he encounters some.. bandits he supposed. But they seem more invested in causing havoc than in financial gain. The malice just pours off them. They are, almost, the kind of monster Geralt would slay. He and Dahlia are almost home, but they are surrounded, and entirely outnumbered. He's only just getting to know his daughter and all he can think is; please. Please. _Please._

When he comes to, everything hurts. He later gets told he has a broken jaw, a missing molar, a broken collarbone and ribs, and he's bruised all over. He’s also surrounded by blood and corpses. he knows himself well enough that even if he's not entirely useless in a fight, he doesn't have those kinds of skills. blinking blood from his eyes, he sees Alena holding a sleeping Dahlia in a floral shawl. She send him an unfathomable look. 

“That wasn’t you,” She says. “That was me.” She hands Dahlia to him, perfectly sound and hale and not a bother on her. And then Alena is gone again. 

It makes him doubt all over again.

*

They live at home, in Pankratz castle for several years after that. Jana had taking her niece in stride and never once mentioned the line of succession. He’s had to bring it up himself; neither Julian nor Dahlia should, under any circumstance be considered for succession. He knows in his bones he is not at all suited to be a nobleman.

He tried his hand at being retired, at being a father. He wasn’t very good at either, he fears, but he muddles through. Dahlia is a serious, intelligent little girl. She loves the stables and is prone to wise-beyond-her-years observations that startle people. He sees Alena in her when he notices her delight in startling people. He loves her in ways he didn’t think existed. The hole left by Geralt and Yennefer and also the life he lived with Geralt and Yennefer is not filled, but the edges are blunted.

*

One day, a horse accidentally steps on one of the stable kittens. He knows this, because Dahlia brings the poor thing inside to him.

“Da, we need a bandage for the kitten, to make it better.” Dahlia is gently cradling a half-dead, mangled kitten.his heart sinks. One does not need to be a healer to see the poor kitten is done for. 

“Oh, sweetheart.” He’s not sure he’s ever felt worse, more helpless, more horrid. They will have to kill the kitten, there is no way it will get better. “I –“ 

Jana then appears next to him and squeezes his arm, hard. She must have been following Dahlia. 

“Don't.” She whispers the demand. "Just let her."

Dahlia has moved over to the table and placed the kitten on crisp white serviette. Her face is screwed in concentration as she folds the edges over the little body. A serviette is probably close enough to a bandage in child-logic. She's very gently with it, folding some flower from a vase in with the kitten. 

“Now for a Magic Kiss!” She tells the kitten and smacks a wet kiss on top of the serviette. They all seem suspended, Jaskier with teh dread of telling his daughter the kitten is dead, Jana unreadable and Dahlia expectant. It's about a minute until the kitten mewls, loudly, and Dahlie brings it back over to them.

“Look, it made her all better!” She’s so proud of herself and hands the bundle over to Jaskier. The kitten is furious. It scratches his hand fiercely as he unwraps the serviette and he hastily sets it on the ground. Dahlia scoops it back up. It's fine. Whole. _What the.._

“We’re going back to the stables!” Dahlia laughs and runs off. Jaskier is frozen. His mind unwilling to wrap itself around what just happened.

“Sit.” Jana guides him to a seat. “You’re doing better than I did.”

“What?” He’s not sure what he’s even asking.

“Jevrem,” Jana’s middle son. “He made stars appear on the ceiling of his room. He made all the beets in the cellar walk out on their own accord. Several things really.” Jana smiles, fondly. “Grandmother used to say that when they know, they can’t anymore.” Can't what? How is there so much magic everywhere? And he went out looking for it, as if it was rare. 

“Grandmother said what?” He asked. "She thought magic was bull."

“She had her moments, rare as they were.” Jana’s smile turns nostalgic, sad maybe. “She said reality smothered magic, and nothing was worse than being aware of it. She’ll grow out of it, but why not be kind about it.”

“She’ll grow out of if.” He repeats, still stunned. How had he gone in search of magic and adventure while apparently there was plenty at home? He was met with a sudden, deep, regret that he never sought out his grandmother more.

“Well.” Jana meets his eyes boldly and directly. “Not all of us.” They had never spoken of it. It had been too long and he was too old to look this young, but Jana had never said a thing. Her husband avoided him, but Jana seemed like she hadn’t expected otherwise.

“I..” He starts. “I didn’t realise.” He admits. It's true enough. He never made himself purposely un-aging. 

“I think that’s how it works.” Jana says gently. He wonders if she expects him to start rapidly aging in front of her now. But he’s known for years and he hasn’t changed a bit, so he doubts that will happen.

“Well..” Jana pats his knee. “Grandmother also once said that we were a family of kindness and small magic. Which is odd coming from her, considering she was such a-“

“Bitch.” Jaskier finished and Jana gave a startled, genuine laugh.

“Yes, she really could be. Still, you were always the kindest.”

“No,” he protests. “That’s not..”

“There was very little kindness in this House.” Julia said it with a capital H, the family, the castle, the Pankratz and adherents environment. “And what was there, was yours and very rarely grandmothers. Julia, Jelenka and I, there was no magic for us, but I’m glad there was for you.”

“Jana..”

“Don’t, please. It’s alright. I.. Jevrem, my son, he could find it here. I did that. I made that for him. And I’m proud of that.” Jaskier wants to hug her, but he’s not sure if they’re there yet. Or if they ever will. They're still too far away from each other. 

“You should be.” He tells her.

*

Then, about two weeks after Nilfgaard sacked Cintra, 8 years since he lost Yennefer and Geralt and 5 years since he was given Dahlia, he starts feeling a wanderlust. An un-ignorable pull of _go_. He is, apparently, not meant for a residential life. He goes back and forth on whether to take Dahlia with him. The world has gotten a lot bleaker in the past few years. He may not have been out much, but he’s not entirely obtuse.

War is only ever good in songs and stories well after they’d passed. In the reality of war foods are dwindling, people are getting more desperate and travel is becoming more dangerous. All good reasons to leave his daughter in the safety of the Pankratz castle, but.. he remembers feeling alone in that castle very well. He also has the feeling that when he leaves this time, he’s not coming back. It feels like the story is ending. So he takes Dahlia.

He has no real direction in mind, other than not-directly-into-the-Nilfgaardian-army. Jana gave them horses and money and supplies, but the atmosphere got grimmer and darker and more desperate. Jaskier the bard was well known and well liked and it was easier to be a travelling bard again. Dahlia, to his mortification, could not sing at all, but she was awfully cute going around with the hat, if he did say so himself and she was funny too. They made a decent living off the arts.

He sang his usual songs yes, but if his music was linked to magic, it was harder to compose songs about love and adventure. His newly written songs became more.. rousing. More critical politically. He knew it was dangerous, he knew there were spies everywhere and he knew he was vulnerable and Dahlia more so, but if his music affected his environment, his environment affected his music. Especially in places partially razed and looted, or in crowds that were mostly refugee. He was almost permanently worried, but it felt right.

They enter a refugee camp, as they become more and more common. Jaskier finds them very low on coin, but the people can be unusually kind, especially if he performs. This one exudes more agitation then the average camp, Jaskier thinks. But displacement and hunger and loss have a habit of doing that. A group of men seems to be debating on whether to set a half ruined barn on fire.

“Good afternoon gentlemen, can I be of assistance?” Jaskier, being who he is, inserts himself into the conversation.

“Fuck off.” One of the men mutters.

“No.” Another bites. “We’re going to burn these witches and be done with it.” Uh oh. Jaskier has noticed an increase in witch hunting. The strange Nilfgaardian magic is causing a lot a prejudice in people. Jaskier has also learned, in his time with Geralt, that the people that other think are witches and those that actually are witches, are very rarely the same people.

“Ah, Bors.” An older man sighs. “We can’t just go and kill people. It's not n a witch, it’s a Witcher. They hunt monsters…” The older gentleman trails off.

“Fuck that!” Number two explodes. “It’s witches and mutants and all kinds of freaks that caused all this war! I say we burn them and be done with it!”

“Ah hell," A fourth pipes up. “You did see em didn’t ya? They’ll be gone in a few hours anyway. no need to make murderers out of ourselves” Dahlia looks up at him with her solemn purple eyes and serious little girl face. Her magic kiss doesn’t work very well anymore, but she has a big, bleeding heart for everything injured and in pain. He adored her for it. 

“Come on.” He says and takes her hand. The men are so busy debating whether they are up for murder that they can easily get into the gaps between the planks on the side of the barn. “Let’s go see.” Logically he knows that Geralt is not the only Witcher out there, but in his heart he knows who he will find. And he does, off course.

It _is_ Geralt and he looks worse than Jaskier’s ever seen him. He looks grey and if it wasn’t for the wet rattling of his breath, Jaskier would say he’s a corpse. He smells like a corpse. He also finds Yennefer, who looks only slightly less dead. She does manage a passable glare though. 

“Jaskier!” Cirilla exclaims and throws herself at him. “Oh, I was praying for someone to come!” He hugs her back warily, and tries to think of a way to tell he he’s not exactly saviour material. That’s Geralt’s role. Or Yennefer’s, when she feels in the mood for it. Both seem to be horridly out of commission. How did all the major players of his past end up in a barn, about to be dead?

“Hello.” Dahlia interrupts. “I’m Dahlia.“ Cirilla seems to startle a little.

“Hello.” She greets back, confused. “I’m Cirilla..” She sends him a questioning look and Jaskier can only shrug, as Dahlia makes her was over to Geralt, who is slowly dying in a pile of mouldy straw. She touches her hand to his face and Geralt does not response at all. That’s..

“Not good.” Dahlia states. Yennefer attempts a mocking snort, but doesn’t seem quite up for it.

*I know sweetheart.” Jaskier says, not that it makes him any more sure on what to do. Outside the argument seems to sway in favour of setting the barn on fire. Yennefer must hear them too, but clearly cannot do anything about it. She seems to only be conscious by sheer force of obstinance. He thinks of the dead men. He thinks of the Tracker that found Agnes. Right, nothing for it then. 

"I, er... have a fairy godmother." Jaskier then says. He knows it sounds childishly ridiculous, but needs must.

"Really?" Ciri ask and there is something excited and hopeful in her tone of voice.

"No." Yennefer grits through her teeth. "That is absolutely ridiculous. Don't -" But she doesn't get to finish that sentence. She's obviously in a lot of pain.

Geralt doesn't comment, as he's dying. Actually dying. Very nearly dead really.

"Well, I do." Jaskier stubbornly says. He's like 99 percent sure he does. "And she'll be able to help." He's about 45 percent sure of that. But it's all he has to offer in their current situation of being completely fucked. 

"So, I'm just going to.." He takes he lute out and think in the direction of Alena. "call her." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bad at judging rating and trigger warnings etc. Please let me know if you think I should add a tag or up the rating.   
> Also, this story is very clear in my head, but I'm aware I'm not the best at putting it to paper. Ask me anything!


	5. Kaer Morhen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People are fucked. In several different ways. And none of them good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've only seen the show and read a lot of fanfiction, so a lot of details are made up and probably not canon. Forgive me.

Jaskier wakes up surrounded by flowers, or actually, under a blanket embroidered with weeds. He blinks, his head pounding, and sees Alena sitting on the foot of his bed, frowning at a large tome.

“I can hear you just fine, you know.” She looks up when his eyes have focused. “There was no need to nag.”

 _Nag?!_ Jaskier recalls playing, and playing and playing. He tried to make a meal out of some dry crust of bread and a dented cup of melted snow. And played some more. He played and sang until Yennefer passed out, Dahlia fell asleep and finally Ciri put her hand over his bleeding fingers and, with the gentle and scared look people give crazy people, suggested that maybe he could try again tomorrow. Alena had not shown up.

“Nag?” He croaks, he’s not able to convey the indignation he feels. His throat hurts and his voice is nearly gone. Alena fidgets and her face changes into something resembling apology.

“I’m sorry, okay? There were a lot of people with pitchforks and torches and stuff.” She looks bad, he thinks. Worse than when he last saw her. Weary. Thin and bloated at the same time. “And it’s really hard to just pick up six people and drop them miles away.” She sighs somewhat apologetically then and shifts to take his hand in hers. His fingertips are still raw.

Is she real? Is she? Has he proved himself to be barking mad once and for all? Also, where are they? It’s not the barn, but it’s in about the same condition, which is to say, half ruined. It’s rather cold and drafty.

“Wher-“ he starts to ask, but is interrupted.

“Da! You’re awake!” Dahlia barrels in, followed only slightly more sedately by Ciri and some hulking golem. The Witcher glaring at the girls is bald and has a few white patches on the visible skin of his hands and head.

“Hi Nana!” Dahlia waves at Alena, who waves back with a small smile.

“Hi Flower.”

Oh, so if he is mad, it runs in the family. Please, let him be at least somewhat sane. He surreptitiously checks Ciri and the unnamed Witcher, who is leaving and closing the door behind him without ever saying a word, for reactions. Evidence would point to Alena being a real person.

“Where are we?” He tries again.

“Kaer Morhen.” Ciri answers him. “I told Alena that’s where were going.” She tries to sound confident, but there is some guilt on her face when she meets his eyes. Alena raises an eyebrow over Ciri’s head. His Fairy Godmother is real. Ciri can see her. Dahlia can see her. She moved them to the Witcher stronghold. jaskier is mostly relieved. It also makes him wonder just how much magic he's done versus how much Alena has done. 

“Yeah, that’s.. sure.” He pats Ciri on the hand and ignores Alena. Ciri also doesn't look good. Dirty, pale and thin. Geralt must have changed his mind about his Child Surpise and been enroute to Kaer Morhen with her. It could not ahve been an easy road. Nevermind the sacking of Cintra. He doesn’t blame Ciri for pretending tehy were all merrily on their way to Kear Morhen and gives Alena a shrug, it’s fine. Kaer Morhen though.. He knew about the Witcher school, twenty years of Geralt’s company and he managed to glean a little. But in his imagination it had been more.. solid.

“Nana..” Dahlia whines interrupting. “I’m hungry.” Jaskier feels both a pang of guilt for letting her go hungry, as well as the stirrings of panic. _Nana?_

“Yeah, let me see Flower.” Alena mutters and pulls up an ugly, purple bag of sorts, puts it on the bed and pulls out a jar and bag, nose wrinkled, after some intense rooting around. “It’s not great.” Alena admits. “But it’s edible.” Jaskier ignores the food for a minute and looks closely at Alena. 

“Nana?” He asks her while his stomach gives a loud growl.

“Hmm?” Alena puts the food on his lap, seeing the hungry looks on Ciri’s face, motions between the three of them. “Share.” She orders.

The food turns out to be dried fruits and nuts and some type of jerky. Travel rations. But everyone looks like they could eat just about anything that stopped moving long enough, so it’s alright. All three of them shove a handfull in their mouths. 

“Why does she call you Nana?” Jaskier feels dread settle in his stomach. “You’re not actually my mother, are you?” The thought just blurts out of his mouth without intent or permission. Alena puffs up in indignation and shock.

“Do I look like your mother?” Alena looks at him as if she doubts his sanity. The same look she gave him when he asked her why she never told him about magic.

“I don’t know!” Jaskier throws back at her. “I never met her.” That’s true, he was told she ran off when he was very young, but he wouldn’t put it past his father to have chased her down and killed her. Alena deflates.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.” She frowns. “Still.. I am most certainly not your mother!” It was a ridiculous question and Jaskier is desperate to move away form the topic. 

“I don’t know my mother either.” Dahlia the pipes up, but not in that direction.. They all look at her as she dedicatedly crunches through the nuts, seeminly unaware of the sudden attention. Alena makes an aborted gesture with her hands

“I’m definitely not touching that one.” She says and moves towards the door. “I’m going to find something real to eat.”

“Wait!” Jaskier has so many questions, but this is the most urgent one. “What about Geralt and Yennefer?” Alena turns around.

“Yeah, they’re fucked.” She shrugs and slips out the door.

*

Alena comes back a few hours later with her arms full of feathers, followed by another Witcher, this one with dark hair and unsettling pale blue eyes. Jaskier has a feeling she is not so much accompanied as being escorted. The Witcher doesn’t quite shove her into the room, but he closes the door with a firm finality the moment she’s inside. Alena opens her arms and Jaskier sees that it’s several chickens that she was carrying. Dead chickens.

“That's all they gave me.” Her face and posture shout incredulity. “Just.. wrung the neck of a few chickens.” She sounds completely astonished. It makes Ciri giggle.

“I think Witchers just eat them like that.” Ciri says. “I’ve seen Geralt eat fish, just seconds after being pulled from the river.” Jaskier knows that, it's disgusting. 

“Ugh. Yes, and rabbit. And deer.” He agrees. Alena throws her hands up. 

“Lovely.” She snorts. "Not us though. Rude fuckers." Alena scolds. She then sticks her hands in the purple bag again and starts pulling things from it, plates, bowls, knives, herbs and spices. Jaskier and Ciri look on fascinated. It’s magic. But it’s not scary and destructive, it’s just.. magical. “Are you going to help or what?” Alena looks up. “We can roast the chicken over the brazier.”

Ciri shrugs and approaches tehpile of fowl. Jaskier and dahlia follow. Might as well. No one seems to have ever plucked or drained a chicken before, so they are busy for a bit with Alena instructing them. Then, when they're all busy;

“Asked about Geralt and Yennefer.” Alena starts as they are plucking feathers. “They’re still alive, but in really bad shape.”

“Are they going to be alright?” Ciri asks, chewing her lip. She took to plucking chickens relatively well, considering she’d probably never stepped foot in a kitchen before, Jaskier thinks.

“Off course.” Dahlia says. His bleeding heart, 'please da, let’s help every injured bug, beast and being out there' daughter, seems to find a savage kind of enjoyment in yanking feathers out. “Nana will fix them!” Alena shoots her a warning look. 

“No.” Alena says. “Nana can’t promise that. Nana is kind of fu-“ Alena seems to stop herself there. “fizzled out herself.” She tells Dahlia. “Also, I can do some quick and dirty field-medic healing, but I'm not much of a healer to be honest.” She tells Jaskier and Ciri.

“What does that mean, fizzled out?” Ciri asks the same question Jaskier meant to.

“Coming here, I fucked up.” Alena admits, pauses and realizes what she said. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t say that.” She tells Dahlia, who only grins at her.

“What I mean is, this place is warded. Warded with some very intricate and complex, powerful spellwork. When I broke through, I got tangled up with the wards. My magic is mostly used up for the moment. Also, I can’t leave.” Alena bends down to rummage through the purple bag, elbow deep, that is flat on the floor. “I tried.” She says. Off course you did. Jaskier thinks. Why stick around?

“Hmm.” Alena pull out what looks like two very narrow swords. “These’ll do.” And skewers the chickens on them before balancing them on the brazier.

“How unfortunate for you.” Jaskier bites, he can hear the bitterness in his voice. It’s not the time and place really, definitely not with Ciri and Dahlia as a curious audience, but who knows he’ll get the chance for a proper long conversation again.

“Considering I will be shredding both my magic and myself if I try to tear myself away from this place, it is indeed a somewhat unfortunate situation.” Alena says icily. And that ends that conversation.

*

The next day an older looking Witcher comes and interrogates Alena. Older he may be, but he is large and has the Witcher aura of controlled violence. Alena is utterly calm. It’s almost funny to watch and Jaskier very much sympathizes with Witcher.

“Who are you?”

“Alena.”

“Alena who? From where?”

“Maria Elisabeth Genevieve Karolina de Lynden. From Gelderland.”

“Where is Gelderland?”

“In the low countries.”

“What low countries?”

“The.. Low Countries. It’s what they’re called.”

"I have never heard of The Low Countries.”

"I can’t help you there.” Alena says. Even Jaskier finds it hard to judge whether she is purposely being difficult or just happens to be very literal. Twenty five years and he’s still not sure.

“What are you?” The Witcher switches topic.

“Human. Mostly.”

“What else?”

“Not. Not-human.” Witchers are very well self-controlled. They don’t feel emotions. Jaskier swears he can hear teeth grit.

“Witch? Sorceress? Mage?”

“I have some magical ability. Call me whatever you like.” The Witcher gives up on the topic.

“Why are you here?”

“I was called for.”

"Who called you."

"Jaskier."

"How did he call you?"

"Magic."

“How did you get here?”

“Through the door.” The Witcher breathes in, slightly more audible than before.

“How did you create a door between a barn in Sodden and Kaer Morhen?”

“Magic.”

“We’ve never heard of this before. It’s not at all like a mage portal.” Alena shrugs and looks at the Witcher passively. The silence stretches and it’s the Witcher that breaks first.

“Why come here, to Kaer Morhen?”

“It’s where they wanted to go.”

“And you just take people where they want to go? Just like that.”

“Sometimes.” Jaskier sees the fingers of one hand curl into a fist.

“Can you go anywhere?”

“No. I need a door.”

“Can you go anywhere with a door?”

“Probably not.” Another slightly audible inhale.

“The little girl says you’re her Fairy Godmother.” There is another silence after Alena inclines her head. “Are you?” The Witcher finally asks.

“What would make me Fairy Godmother?” Alena responds with a question and Jaskier suppresses a wheeze. He remembers this bit. The Witcher glares balefully at Alena, who calmly ignores it. He eventually gives up and walks to the door. There he stops with his hand on the knob.

“You’re not of this world.” The Witcher states, back still turned.

“No.” Alena agrees. The Witcher then turns and faces her with a completely blank face.

“Do you mean us harm?” the Witcher asks. It sounds compelling, deep and sacred. He’s afraid, Jaskier realizes. That’s ridiculous, as Alena is pretty harmless. Maybe it’s Witcher overcautiousness.

“Not at all.” Alena says.

*

After that, they can roam the castle as they please, though it is more of a ruin. Alena and Vesemir seem to have daily conversations with very little words. Alena asks about the wards, who made them and how they were made, and how they function. Vesemir says he doesn’t know anything about them. Vesemir asks about what Alena is and where she’s from and what she can do. And Alena gives very short, non-committal answers, which he doesn’t doubt are true, but mean very little. Jasier is amazed at the persistency at both ends.

Geralt and Yennefer show very little signs of improving, even if both Vesemir and Alena claim they are. Vesemir is very protective of Geralt at least and keeps Alena away from them. Alena rolls her eyes and say she can feel their life-force improving incrementally, even from the other side of the castle ruins.

Dahlia seems utterly delighted at life at Kaer Morhen. There are five Witchers staying the winter, not counting Vesemir or Geralt, and they spend their days sparring and doing their best to sort of keep the castle from crumbling. They get many scrapes and cuts and, with the exception of Bogdan, they all seem to indulge Dahlia in letting her wash and bind their injuries. For being large, scary Witchers, they are awfully patient with Dahlia, whether she wants to play healer or help patch holes in the walls.

Ciri is.. intense. She’s asked to be taught to fight. She holes up the library, but expressed her frustration at the lack of books on geography and politics and history. Unsurprisingly, the Witcher library features heavily on bestiaries, herbal guides and fighting strategies. She does not complain about the food, or the draft or the cold, or having one set of fitting clothes, all the things Jaskier would love to complain about, but can’t find a willing ear for. Ciri takes to training with a single minded focus that is a little unsettling. 

Jaskier is antsy, he's worries about Geralt and Yennefer and Dahlia and Ciri, in turns and all at the same time. He's tries to speak to Alena, but she is very good at avoiding him. He absentmindedly plays and sings some, and though no Witcher comments on it, he does notice them lurking when he plays. he does not have teh focus to compose or write. He woudl love to just spend an hour complaining about someone about everything, from the worrying to t eh cold, to the food situation, but it seems in bad form to bitch to his hosts and just wrong to bitch to Ciri or his daughter. Alena would be perfect, except for someone who can't leave the castle, she hard to find. 

The food situation is an interesting one. Though the Witchers have plenty provisions, they are all very.. basic. The Witchers eat their meat barely thawed, straight from the snowed in storage. They just chew the wheat and barley grains, chomp on vegetables raw. There is not much else other than what Jakier woudl consider raw ingredients. Only no one cooks. On more thanon occasion he and teh girls have roasted some meat over candles or the fireplace to not get sick. 

“Da!” One day Dahlia runs in. “Lambert gave me an egg! It was still warm from the chicken!”

“Er.” That makes Jaskier slightly nausea. “That’s nice.” he tells her, suppressing a somewhat panicked tone. Raw eggs aren’t that bad, he tells himself. Better than raw chicken. “But maybe next time, ask Nana to cook it for you please?” Dahlia agrees in passing, before running off to help Coen try and re-build part of a wall. Jaskier then has to track down Lambert and tell the man a lot of raw food is bad for humans. The Witcher seems astounded at this information. 

Not soon after, Alena had demanded to be taken to the kitchen. There had been a few confused looks until Vesemir admitted, the kitchen hadn’t been used in years.

“Ridiculous. Seven grown, able bodied adults and we’re all chomping on raw turnips!” Alena had said, disgusted, and taken over the kitchen. One lunch of roast carrots with bacon bits and oatcakes later Jaskier could weep with joy. The Witchers, except Bogdan and Vesemir, were won over one dinner later with Lambert groaning ‘Oh, she can stay!’ through a mouthful of buttered roll and goulash.

On the other side, Eskel had brought a number of baby giant centipedes back to Kaer Morhen, which apparently were a delicacy? And if Alena would like to cook them maybe? They were very nice raw, but so far all provisions had been improved on in the kitchen. Jaskier saw Alena blink at the sack of giant dead bugs with a look of slight distaste on her face. Then her body language changed visibly to ‘well alright’ and that night they had roasted centipede in garlic butter with crusty bread and juicy carrots. Ciri and Dahlia were gleefully sharing a centipede, cracking legs and hacking through chitin. How had he never noticed how feral little girls were? Jaskier would never get used to centipedes for dinner.

As for the cold and drafts, the moment his fingers were mostly healed, he played the _warm and well insulated room_ song a lot. It still worked relatively well, as long as there were no actual holes in the wall. If anyone noticed, no one said a thing. Just like no one said a thing about the time when Ciri had a panic attack and leveled an outbuilding. Or when Lambert had a tooth knocked out and Dahlia, who was just getting her grownup teeth, told him it was fine, he’d get another one. And then he did.

He also noticed, the moment the bedroom they all shared was warm and well insulated, Alena opened the window.

“Really?” Jaskier asked.

“I like fresh air.” Alena said.

“Then go sleep outside.” Jaskier told her, harsher than he meant. They weren’t alright just yet. There was still the whole ‘not sure you exist, you lied to me for twenty five years’ bit between them. Alena moved rooms.

*

After ten days, when he wanders into the kitchen for breakfast, and all there is, is bread and butter and jam. Not Alena. He’s pretty sure the jam is from Alena, as the Witchers only seem to have food that is killed, or yanked from the earth and requires no further preparation. So she was in the kitchen fairly recently. 

He finds her near the healing room, having a silent argument with Vesemir. She looks better, healthier, now. She says some of her magic is growing back. Vesemir eventually relents and lets her into the healing quarters. Jaskier follows. Geralt and Yennefer are on separate beds, near each other, but restless, but unconcious. They look, well, like shit. Their skin gray with puffy red or dark streaks, seeping burns and sweaty foreheads. Their breaths rattle. the don;t look much better, in Jaskier's untrained eye. They still look as of they're at death's door. 

Alena just looks from one to the other slowly, frowning. She touches them both, one by one, and then stretches to touch at the same time. There is no show. No visible magic. After about five minutes she turns to a vigilant Vesemir and a curious Jaskier. 

“This bond between them is shit.” She announces. “I know it’s none of my business, but this was really, really badly done? What on earth was the goal here?” Alena says, mostly to herself.

“What bond?” Vesemir asks.

“It was a Djinn.” Jaskier blurts at the same time. Geralt had told him about it, though not in detail. He gathered the rest on that cursed mountain. Something about the wish of the Djinn binding Yennefer and Geralt. 

“Oh boy.” Alena blows air through her nose, ignoring Vesemir’s ‘what?’. “An evil wish fulfilling entity?” she asks. Jaskier glances at Vesemir, who’s growled out a ‘yes’. He has a feeling like he is sixteen years old again and getting his friend in trouble.

“Well.. I wouldn’t say evil..” Jaskier starts. Vesemir growls and Alena tilts her head exasperated.

“What was the wish? I assume it got twisted, but I’d like some more detail.” Alena asks, and is already looking in the middle distance, seeming in a deep internal review. Jaskier looks back at Vesemir. The older man is obviously some kind of authority over the Witchers and Jaskier can only assume what rules there are about engaging creatures they’re supposed hunt. He then looks at the two people he loves second best in the whole world and sees them hovering on the brink of death.

“Er, something about sharing their fates.” Jakier admits. Geralt has never shared the actual wording of the wish and he’s only sort of gleaned that much from the conversation he overheard with Borch. Vesemir growls, Alena looks at hims as if he's being intentionally obtuse.

“How wonderfully vague.” She comments. “I assume he used the actual word ‘fate’?”

"The hell does it matter?” Vesemir snaps. Alena shoots him an annoyed look.

“Off course words matter. Words have power.” She tells him as if speaking to a child. “The word ‘fate’ has some, well, fatalistic tendencies. Looking at them, they seem to be sharing a demise.” Alena frowns, looks back and forth between Yennefer and Geralt. “Normally a bond like this shares strengths, but, that’s a Djinn isn’t it?” Alena seems to be mostly talking to herself, still, Vesemir grunts in the affirmative.

“Oh!” Jaskier suddenly realizes. “That why! The Djinn was going to kill Yennefer and Djinns can’t kill their masters, so when he bound their fates, he saved Yennfer!” That's clever, Jaskier approves. 

“Well, that’s dumb.” Alena gives him a bland look, as if she just read his thoughts. “He could have just wished the Djinn to go away or something.”

“Huh.” Jaskier deflates. It _is_ dumb, in hindsight. But in the heat of the moment it probably seemed a good idea, Jaskier muses.

“What are you thinking?” Vesemir interrupts his thinking. However he feels about Alena, he does seem to respect her.

“Well, from what I gather, Geralt, is dying from sepsis and some kind poison that went into his knee. Added to that, there is additional poison that affects his kidneys and liver, exhaustion, hypothermia and starvation. Yennefer is also cold and has burns over a large part of her body and is completely magically exhausted. By all rights both should be dead. And they’re only sharing the damage, Yennefer’s kidneys and liver are suffering as Geralts are. And Geralt is being poisoned by whatever crap you’ve been pouring down his throat, because he’s completely magically exhausted, and the potions have a negative affect on him. Which in turn has a negative affect on Yennefer, who is using every bit of regained magic to stop her organs from shutting down.” Alena takes a deep breath and heals a tiny patch of skin on the back of Yennefer’s hand and holds up Geralt’s, which is still burned. Then she swiftly makes a shallow cut on the back of the healed patch on Yennefer, and the same cut appears on top of the burn on Geralt’s hand.

“Those potions are supposed to heal him.” Vesemir sounds guilty and Alena waves it away.

“Look, I know it’s taboo to touch a bond if you’re not one of the people it’s between.” Alena says as if that is common knowledge. “But they’re dying, so I’m going to break it.” There is defiance in her tone, as if she’s daring them to stop her. Not that Jaskier see why either of them would. “Right. Did he wished their fates bound forever, or just ‘I wish our fates were bound’ open ended?” Alena asks.

“I don’t know.” Jaskier feels a little helpless. “He never really talked about it.” Alena rolls her eyes.

“Off course, that would have been too easy.”

“Does it change anything?” Vesemir asks.

“Yes.” Alena says, annoyed. “If he has tacked on something like ‘forever’ or ‘till the end of ours days’ or something like that, it will be a lot harder to break the bond. If it was a vague open end, it’s a lot easier to convince the bond it’s run its course.” Halfway through Alena seems to start looking inwards again. Probably thinking on how to go about breaking a bond. Ignoring them both, she suddenly plops down in a sitting position on the ground between the two cots. “Don’t bother me for a few minutes, yeah?” she tells them and promptly closes her eyes.

Several minutes tick by in an awkward silence. Jaskier glances at Vesemir, who to anyone not used to Witchers seems stoic. Jaskier sees he’s nervous. Deciding between action and patience. Jaskier wonder how long Alena is going to think about her course of action when she opens her eyes.

“Okay. Done.” She tries to stand up and falters. Jaskier reaches for her, but Vesemir is faster. He hauls her to her feet.

“That’s it?” Jaskier asks, it seemed like nothing happened.

“Yeah.” Alena confirms. “Sorry darling, no sparkles or flashing lights or anything.” She closes her eyes for a long moment, takes a deep breath and turns to Vesemir, who is still steadying her. “I would send them some healing magic, but I’m still..” Alena pauses. “Fucked.” She admits. “But at least they won’t be dragging each other down now.” Vesemir nods, he seems.. relieved, Witcher style.

*

Alena does nothing but sleep and eat for the next two days and wakes up almost simultaneously with Yennefer. Yennefer looks like shit. Her hair is scorched short, there are burns all over her and she looks ashen, but she’s awake and alert and mean, like Yennefer. Jaskier goes to see her immediately and when he goes to embrace her, she barks at him. 

“Don’t touch me, bard!” Jaskier hold his hands up in surrender and Yennefer deflates a bit. “Everything hurts.” She whispers, which Jaskier shoudl have thought about really. 

“But you’re alive.” Jaskier tells her, relieved, but unable to change the way they normally interact. 

“Yes.” Yennefer confirms, a satisfied little smile playing around her lips.

*You look like shit though.” He grins at her.

“Oh fuck off. Once I have my magic back, I will turn you into the toad you are.” Yennefer threatens, but by now he learns she doesn’t mean it. Not in this tone of voice. He doesn’t touch her, but sits close enough to share body heat.

“So, Alena told me what happened.” Yennefer says.

“Yeeess?” Jaskier asks. Yennefer and Alena. They will either love or hate each other. He’s already worried what they’ll get up to either way.

“Fairy Godmother?” Yennefer teases. Jaskier can feel his cheeks get red. He mumbles something unintelligent on purpose. “Really though, a Fairy Godmother?” Yennefer starts to laugh, but then winces.

“Well, did she tell _you_ what she is?” Jaskier asks. He doubts it, Alena seems very good at avoiding having to answer that question, but if she has told Yenenfer and not him, he’ll be right pissed. Yennefer doesn’t say anything and turns her head to look at Geralt again. So no. “Well then.” Jaskier has to have the last word.

They sit in silence, watching over Geralt for a long while. Geralt is still unconscious, though Vesemir seems happy with it. He says its more of a healing coma than the half-dead unconsciousness he was in before. His breath is even now and he does seem more restful.

“I don’t feel any different.” Yennefer suddenly says. Jaskier startles. He knows the burns are very bad and she must be in a lot of pain.

“You only just woke up yesterday.” He starts, only for Yennefer to glare at him.

“No, you idiot bard.” She bites. “About him.” She inclines her head to Geralt’s unconscious form. Jaskier takes his time to think about a response and still can only come up with;

"Why would you?”

“The bond!” Yennefer says exasperated. “Alena says it’s gone, and I believe her. But I don’t _feel_ any different.” Jaskier looks at Yennefer, powerhouse of a sorceress, and sees the real Yennefer. He’s only gotten glimpses of her before, but the minutes stretch and Yennefer stays.

“Again.” Jaskier tries gently. “Why would you?” Yennefer’s hands twitch as if she wants to hit him.

“I thought it was the bond that made me feel this way.” Yennefer then whispers. “But I suppose it’s not.”

“Ooohh.” Jaskier sighs. “No wonder you were so pissed off.” Yennefer hums in acknowledgement. She's in love. Possibly for the first time ever. Jaskier thinks back on being young and drunk and realising he was truly in love with Geralt and it wasn’t going away. He sympathises. He looks at Yennefer now and realises he himself is no better off.

“You can’t make people love you.” He repeats what both his grandmother and Alena have told him. "Nothing can."

“Fuck.” Yennefer sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the greatest chapter, I'm sorry. I'm just looking forward to the next one, but this needed to come first. 
> 
> But I did make up a few extra Witchers!


End file.
